In my recent trip to Mexico I planned to look for this spot among several Indian tribes.  Out of six populations that I expected to visit I really saw but two—­the Aztecs and the Mayas.  I do not believe that the sacral spot exists among Aztecs.  I made no search, because Aztec friends, who would be sure to know, all agreed in denying its occurrence.  Among the Mayas, the case is different.  In the little Maya town of Palenque I examined all the pure blood babies.  The back of the first little creature bared for my inspection bore a clearly defined, dark blue-purple spot, just where it might be expected.  The spot was almost two inches wide and nearly three-fourths of an inch high.  The child was a boy of eight months.  A brother, two years old, showed no trace of the spot, but the mother says it was formerly well defined.

Every one of the seven pure Maya babies, below ten months old, in the town was purple-spotted.  A pair of boy twins, two months old, were marked in precisely the same place with pale blue-purple spots, of the same size and form.  In one boy of ten months the spot seemed to be disappearing and was represented by three ill-defined and separated blotches.  In the village, there were three babies of suitable age, but of mixed—­Spanish-Maya—­blood; no one of these showed any trace of the colored spot.  We may say, then, that in Palenque every Maya baby below ten months of age was sacral spotted, and that no Mestizo baby was.

Does this prove that the Mayas are Asiatics by ancestry?  The daily press asserts that I make that claim; it is mistaken.  I am free to say I don’t know what to do with my spotted Maya babies.  I presume that Baelz will cousin them with his little Japanese.

FREDERICK STARR.  From The Chicago Tribune:  January 11, 1903.

INDEX

abandoned river course, 374. acacia, 97, 216.  Acala, 48, 361.  Agua Bendita (Chiapa), 44, 348.  Agua Bendita (Mex.), 64. agua miel, 61. aguardiente, 255.  Aguazotepec, 240. aje, 45:  insect, 46; 79.  Ajuno, 76, 84, 107.  Akxotla, 191. alcaldes indios, 357. alligators, 277, 290.  Ancona, Bishop, 300. antiquities, 116, 223, 230, 239, 288, 345. ant—­foraging, 289; —­honey, 190. apparition of the Virgin, 395.  Aranza, 82. arbol huerfano, 196. arriero—­tardy, 271; —­unreliable, 358; —­abandons us, 385.  Arroyo—­Jefe, 247.  Atla, 245; carry-sacks, 256; costume, 256; witchcraft, 256.  Atlihuitzia—­Santa Maria, 195. axolotl, 64. ayate, 58, 267, 271.  Ayutla, 23, 149.  Aztec, 242, 279, 281, 283, 285, 397; breakfast, 196.

babies—­carrying, 267; —­care of, 57. bamboo, 289. band—­Huauhtla, 237; —­honors us, 124. bandolier, 318.  Barela, Sr. and Sra., 189. bark-paper, 245, 246, 268.  Baron, 293, 320. barranca, 190,191, 214, 280, 363.  Barrios—­Pedro, 230. basalt, 196, 249. battle of flowers, 321. begonia, 246.  Belen, 194. bells—­pottery, 112.  Benito Juarez—­steamer, 293.